Chapter 10

Maybe the timing's not right. Maybe you both have some growing up to do. I don't know. All I know is that you're throwing away the chance to spend the rest of your life with a woman like Calleigh Duquesne. Hate to say it, bro, but she's the best thing that's ever happened to you.

Take Charlie's ring and go tell her that.

Calleigh and Eric sat in stunned silence on either end of his couch. In life, Timothy Speedle was as mischievous as they come. They should have expected nothing less from him in death.

A size-four, white-gold, oval-cut diamond ring was burning a hole in Delko's pocket. He could feel the heat radiating from it so hot that he feared to touch it. Speed left Charlie's ring for Calleigh. For Eric to give her. It was almost like Tim knew he only had a week left to live.

That bewildering thought sent a shudder through him, and Eric violently propelled himself off the couch to pace back and forth in the living room, trying futilely to dispel the feelings which were inundating him.

Calleigh was no better off. Her eyes were glued on the picture of her and Eric now frozen on the television screen, and her mind was running a million miles a minute. She barely noticed Eric stopping the DVD player and turning off the TV.

Just as the silence in the room threatened to collapse on top of them, Eric finally found his voice. "Calleigh?"

When Calleigh looked up at her best friend, all the memories came flooding back. Not just from their night together, but all of them—seven years worth of memories with this man. Wonderful memories, some painful ones, but not a single one that she would trade away. Those were the things that made them, them. She closed her eyes against the building tears and fell heavily against the back of the sofa.

"Just give me a minute, Eric," she whispered.

Eric nodded, even though she couldn't see it. And though Calleigh couldn't know it, he was silently praying that he wouldn't do something to eternally screw his relationship with her. Then again, Speed's little video might have already done the trick.

Long moments later, Calleigh took a deep breath and opened her red-rimmed eyes to meet Eric's. "Did you mean it?" she asked quietly.

Her question took Eric by surprise, but he didn't hesitate with an answer. "Every word."

A salty trail descended down Calleigh's cheek, and she none-so-gently brushed it away. Then, as Eric had done before, she launched herself off the couch and began pacing. She wanted to say something but she couldn't get the words out, and two more rebellious tears streamed down her face.

Eric took a step toward her with a soft look in his eyes. "For what it's worth, Calleigh… I—I still do."

Calleigh whipped around fiercely. "Don't say that!" she screamed. "You can't SAY that, Eric!" Seeing Eric's stricken face and watching him sink numbly back to the couch, Calleigh immediately regretted her outburst.

"God, Eric," she sighed and plopped down next to him. "I'm so sorry."

He didn't look at her. "Sorry for screaming at me, or sorry for sleeping with me?"

There was a bitterness in his voice that Calleigh had never heard before, and it frightened her. Eric had one of the purest, gentlest, most passionate spirits of anyone she knew, and she'd made him bitter. The thought made Calleigh sick.

"It was never just sex, Eric," she murmured. The man sitting beside her finally turned his face in her direction, and when Calleigh caught sight of his eyes, she was blown away by the emotions she saw raging there.

"No, it wasn't."

Just those few words seemed to exhaust them, and both Eric and Calleigh slowly sank into the cushions, letting the quiet wash over them and searching for some kind of way to ease the pain, to understand what was happening. The room grew silent, but the air was charged between them as their minds strayed…

Twisted sheets. Sweaty brows and swollen lips. Her nails dug into his shoulders, they both cried out.

Calleigh buried the heels of her hands in her eyes, desperately trying to make it all go away, but there was no use. Her breath hitched on a sob. "I can't get you out," she whispered miserably. "I can't get you out of my head."

Before Eric could respond, Calleigh was once more off the couch and on her feet, pacing just in front of him. "What the hell were we thinking?" she asked herself in disbelief.

Hurt shot through Eric like a bullet. "Don't tell me you regret that night, Calleigh. Because I know that's not true," he said furiously.

"That's not what I meant!" the woman cried, gesturing wildly with her hands. "I just meant…how did we let this go so far? Why didn't we talk? I mean, Eric! Look at us!"

"Would it have been better to talk about it?" Eric asked, rising from the couch to stand just inches in front of her. He felt three years' worth of anger and love and longing dying to break free, and he wasn't going to hold it back anymore.

"Would it have been better for me to tell you I didn't want you to go? Because I didn't. Would it have been better for me to tell you," Eric moved closer, "every time I thought about you for the last three years? How I dreamed about you? Stop you in the hallway at work and whisper how much I wanted you?"

He was so close to her, Calleigh could feel his breath on her skin, and she stopped breathing altogether.

"You tell me, Calleigh. What would have happened? What would have happened if we never got a call-out that day? What would've happened if Speedle hadn't taken a bullet to the chest? Or if I'd seen this video then instead of now? Do you honestly believe we could have made it work?"

Eric's voice chilled Calleigh to the bone; her body hummed as she locked her eyes on her best friend's. "No."

"Speed was right," Eric stated quietly. "We had a lot of growing up to do." He saw Calleigh's tears coming back and brought a finger to her cheek to wipe them away.

To hell with too late, Eric thought with surprising ferocity as he felt her skin beneath his touch. I'm not letting this go. "Calleigh," he whispered resolutely, "making love with you…I've never felt like that in my life. And maybe it was a mistake, but I'd do it all over again."

Calleigh sniffled and shook her head, taking a step back from him and attempting to clear the fog from her brain. "Too much has happened since then, Eric. You're acting like we can do this, like we can be together and everything will be fine."

"Did you not hear that video?" Eric asked her incredulously. "I'm the last one to stand here and tell you that. Love isn't a cure-all. But I think we at least need to talk about this, Cal. We never gave ourselves a chance!"

"You said it yourself," she replied angrily. "It wouldn't have worked."

"Not then, no," Eric clarified.

Calleigh threw her hands up in the air. "And what makes it so different now? Eric, all we have now is three years' worth of misery, and that's nothing to build a relationship on."

"Is that really how you see our friendship? Three years' worth of misery?"

"No, I—"

"Don't, Calleigh. Yeah, sometimes it's hard to look at you and not think about what could have been. Sometimes it does hurt. But most of the time I look at you and see my best friend. I see all the laughter and joy of the last seven years."

"Me too," Calleigh relented, her thoughts a mixture of nostalgia and sadness. "But that's exactly why we shouldn't cross this line, Eric."

"What, so I can spend the next three years of my life wondering 'what if?' No."

Calleigh took a step back at the forcefulness of Eric's words. Who does he think he is? "No? I'm pretty sure it takes two people to make that decision. You can't just decide on your own."

"You're right," Eric countered. "I can't make up your mind for you. But I can choose for myself, and I choose you."

"You choose me," Calleigh scoffed.

"I do. Calleigh, just hear me out," Eric pleaded, taking a step toward her. His words were spilling out almost faster than he could think them.

"Maybe I didn't know back then exactly what I wanted. I knew—I knew I wanted more, that I wanted you. But I also knew I wasn't ready." He took another cautious step. "I got shot last year, Cal. I went through hell and came out the other side a different man."

Calleigh made no move to protest his advance, so Eric took one more step in her direction. "I understand a lot of things now that didn't make sense before."

"Please, enlighten me."

"Hey, don't do that." She sent him an apologetic look and he pressed on. "I didn't think I could be enough for you, Calleigh," he admitted quietly.

Calleigh's forehead crinkled in confusion. "What?"

"Three years don't seem like much, but, God, I was still a kid! I barely knew who I was. It's like you said, a lot has happened since then. Can't you see that everything we've been through has made us stronger?" Eric was invading her space now, but she didn't back away. "We're strong, Calleigh. Our friendship is strong. And I can finally believe what Speed was telling me, that I have something to offer you."

"So why now?" Calleigh asked him, her voice thick with unshed tears. "Why didn't you say something after your shooting? Why not say something before I started dating Jake? It's not like I was putting up any red flags."

"No?" Eric said sarcastically. He rocked back on his heels and crossed his arms over his chest, pretending to contemplate something deeply. "Let me think. What was it you said? 'I trust you with my life?' 'He's in Homicide, we're in the lab day and night?' The kiss in the hallway was just the cherry on top."

"Okay, so you're allowed to be snarky, but I'm not?" Calleigh asked angrily.

Eric sighed. "Listen, Calleigh, I'm sorry. But don't insult my intelligence by pretending you didn't know what I wanted."

"Right, something you wanted so badly that you would just stand by and watch as I ran to Jake?"

"What was I supposed to do, Calleigh?" Eric nearly yelled. He was at his wit's end. "Charge in on my white horse and sweep you away? Was I supposed to run after you and tell you not to go? I had no right, and you'd made it clear that wasn't what you wanted."

"I never told you what I wanted, Eric!" Her voice broke on the words as she screamed them at her best friend.

How could Calleigh possibly explain that was exactly what she wanted? For Eric to rush in and save the damsel in distress, for him to steal her away and ride off into the sunset? She'd felt so damn lost, and for once in her life, she wanted someone else to rescue her.

Eric wasn't sure if he'd ever seen Calleigh so out of control, but he was so angry at the moment that calming her down was the last thing on his mind. "No, you didn't Cal. You just gave me the brush off instead."

Calleigh crossed the few feet between them and shoved him, hard. "It wasn't that simple, Eric! It's never that simple!" she roared, shoving him again.

He stood his ground, undeterred and even more angry. "Yeah, because we make it hard! Don't you want this to stop, Calleigh? And don't tell me the only way to end this is to walk away."

"It is!"

"No! Because I'm not walking away, not this time."

"Fine, Delko," Calleigh retorted furiously. "But you're on your own, because I'm done." She turned to leave but Eric caught her wrist and pulled her back.

"You can't just quit me, Calleigh," Eric uttered brokenly. This was his last chance to hang on to his best friend. "We can't quit each other. We tried that already."

Damn him! Calleigh knew he was right, and she despised him for it. Eric saw her resolve beginning to crack, the tears forming in her eyes, and he wrapped her tightly in his arms. "I hate you," Calleigh cried into his chest. "I hate you, I hate you."

"No, you don't, Cal."

"Why can't you just leave me alone?" she growled, trying to break free from his grasp.

Eric just held on tighter. His throat burned as he answered her: "Because I love you."

Calleigh's heartbeat tripped over itself and a wave of nausea coursed through her body. She struggled as hard as she could until Eric finally let her go. Tears were streaming down her face as she pushed him away. "I can't stay here," she breathed. "I can't—"

She never finished, darting across the room to grab her purse. Behind her, Eric stood in the middle of his living room, feeling much like an open book whose pages had just been maliciously ripped out.

"Calleigh, please don't go. We need to talk about this. It won't just go away," he begged her.

"Talk," Calleigh laughed mirthlessly. "Why? So you can tell me you love me? I don't believe you. It's too late. You're too late."

Eric didn't know what else to do but tell her the truth, even if she didn't want to hear it. "I'm not too late. I refuse to believe that. I do love you, Calleigh. And the thing is—I know you love me, too."

She really did believe that Eric loved her, but Calleigh couldn't deal with this right now. "I can't even think straight, Eric," she sighed, anger and sarcasm finally absent from her voice. She sounded…weary. "Just give me a few days. I need to clear my head. I need some space."

Eric nodded, but Calleigh saw the fear in his eyes. "I promise I'm not running away, okay?"

He observed her for a second until the earnestness in her gaze convinced him that she meant what she said. "Okay."

Cal quickly crossed the room and pecked a kiss to Eric's cheek. "I'll call you," she whispered, and then she was gone.